A Northern California convenience store that sold the sole winning ticket to the $425 million Powerball jackpot received a $1 million check Thursday, as state lottery officials waited for the winner of one of the largest jackpots in U.S. history to come forward. The winning ticket was sold at Dixon Landing Chevron in Milpitas, about 10 miles north of San Jose. The winner has up to a year to claim the prize and could opt for a lump sum payment of $242.2 million, according to state lottery officials.

It's not too late to get flu — or vaccine

With weeks remaining in a particularly deadly flu season, U.S. health officials on Thursday urged flu vaccinations for everyone over 6 months old, including pregnant women. "Influenza can make anyone very sick, very fast and it can kill," said Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This year's illnesses have been caused mainly by the H1N1 virus, the "swine flu" strain that caused a pandemic in 2009. Young and middle-age adults have been especially hard hit.

Ag trend: Fewer farms, older farmers

The number of U.S. farms is declining even as the value of crops and livestock has increased in the past five years, a government census of American agriculture released Thursday says. The survey shows there were 2.1 million farms in the United States in 2012, down more than 4 percent from 2007. Farmers are getting older — the average age was 58.3 years, and a third of farmers were over 65. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has made revitalization of rural America a priority at USDA.

Study predicts heat wave, crime wave

A study by Matthew Ranson of Abt Associates, a research and consulting firm in Cambridge, Mass., suggests periods of higher temperatures caused by global warming will trigger more U.S. crimes in the next century, with social costs estimated to run as high as $115 billion.